


Modern Love

by compo67



Series: Palo Alto Verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Always Female Sam, Angst, Bottom Sam, College Student Sam, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Oral Sex, POV Sam Winchester, Rough Sex, Smut, Stanford Era, Top Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 16:58:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2740076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compo67/pseuds/compo67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Winchester is a junior in college. She's happy with her life as it is, even if it involves sleeping with classmates who don't deliver or satisfy. But then her brother shows up, she plays sad Matt Nathanson songs, and can't figure out if her life is really that good or if it's what she's settling for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Modern Love

Sam wakes up next to the guy from her Speech class. He couldn't defend his stance on outsourcing, and he definitely couldn't make her come.  
  
As he snores away on her purple sheets, she sits up and resents him. This was supposed to be a better prospect than most. He's tall, trim, has nice eyes, and seemed to have some intelligence. But is he interesting? Nope. Does he listen? Not at all. Did he bring a condom? Yeah, but it was expired. Did he know where to stick his dick? Yes, sorta. Sam doesn't do anal with guys on the first lay. Also, just because it's a hole doesn't mean things go in there.  
  
Did he have finesse? Nuh uh. He believes in ramming in as fast as he can and bam! All done.  
  
She didn't even have to fake an orgasm. He fell asleep two seconds after he came. It would've been better if they had been drunk; at least she could excuse his behavior. Some day, he'll make someone who doesn't care about mutual orgasms very happy. That someone is not Sam.  
  
Out of bed, Sam walks around her apartment with a shirt and boxers on. If he had been good, his reward would be morning nakedness. He gets her period boxers and the battered Gators Do It Best shirt from New Orleans, which has nail polish stains on the front and a rip in the arm pit. She orders breakfast for herself from a place around the corner and reminds Tito she wants extra cheese in her omelet. Three weeks ago she tried being vegan. It didn't work. The thought of cheese is more satisfying than the activity some might call sex last night. That's not sex in Sam's book. That's a poorly done montage to wrestling.  
  
Before her breakfast arrives, she wakes up wham bam and kicks him out. "But what..." Nope. "Can I..." No way. They're done. It was a mistake to casually sleep with someone anyway, especially from a class. Now she'll have to give speeches knowing what his dick looks like.  
  
Five minutes later, her doorbell rings and she's excited for cheesy eggs. She grabs a ten out of her jeans from last night and runs to the door. Checking the peep hole like her father commanded her to all throughout childhood, she sees a takeout bag and smiles. Food. Hot, gooey, food.  
  
"Hi...whatareyoudoinghere?" She expects to see Jose or Bill, the usual morning delivery guys.  
  
Instead, it's her brother.  
  
And he has her food.  
  
"You look charming," he scoffs, eyeing her up and down. "And what kind of welcome is that for the man who bought your breakfast? I'll just reimburse myself." He takes the ten from her hand.  
  
They're supposed to stop.  
  
They promised more people than just themselves.  
  
She punches him in the chest, directly above his nipple, grabs her food and the ten, and slams the door in his face. How dare he judge her period boxers. And this is the Gator shirt he bought her. As he grumbles and complains, she assesses her outfit. She looks cute, god dammit. She could make a plastic bag look cute.  
  
Sam always thought she'd take after her mother. All the pictures her father showed her yielded a blond, classic American beauty. Instead, her hair came in dark, wavy, and resentful of all products or irons. Her mother was tall and lean. She is five foot seven and solid. That's a polite way of saying that she's not delicate, model material. She's a fuller C cup, bounces between a ten and a twelve, and her ass has been known to knock shit off tables.  
  
The last girlfriend Dean had was her complete opposite: she was a Taylor Swift kind of girl.  
  
Of course, dude from speech class looks a lot like Dean. Everyone has been coping differently. She even dated a girl last semester, who might've been a version of Dean in another life. Jess was nice. Really nice. There was a future there when they'd zip up each other's dresses and borrow shoes.  
  
Sam broke it off.  
  
Turning away from the door, she sets her now cold breakfast on the counter. She walks back to the door and leans against it.  
  
"Sam."  
  
"Dean."  
  
"Let me in."  
  
"Let yourself out."  
  
"C'mon, I just wasted a pack of ghouls in Denver and drove all night. Let me crash on your couch."  
  
John found out a few days before she left for Stanford. He didn't catch them fucking; that might've actually been less awkward. Nope. He caught them waking up together. He saw the tiny, quiet moments that made them more. He saw the press of scruff to her cheek for a good morning kiss, the familiar, freckled hand territorially splayed across her middle, and he heard the words that sealed the deal: "Hey, Jude."  
  
They knew what they were doing. They used condoms and the pill like it was a religion. John didn't care. All he saw was red.  
  
And somehow, he didn't blame Dean. They're still hunting together and speaking to each other.  
  
He blamed Sam.  
  
"There's a motel nearby," Sam murmurs. She wraps her arms around herself.  
  
This is just a delay.  
  
His hand presses on the door. If he wanted to, he could've gotten in ten times over by now. He's snuck into her apartment before, like that one time John hadn't been home for a few days. Home was a motel and a few days was actually a week.  
  
Turns out, he was just drinking away what his daughter did to their family and the memory of their mother.  
  
Sometimes Sam wishes she looked like Mary. But then she can't decide what would hurt her father more: his wife looking back at him or his own features.  
  
Maybe Mary would have understood. They've made her a saint in memory, so why not believe that she would have? And while she's dreaming, let's say Mary would've been there to take her shopping for bras at the mall instead of Dean stealing five of them from a thrift store when he was sixteen and getting upset with her when none of them fit.  
  
It started when she was fifteen and he was everything.  
  
"Sammy."  
  
"No, Dean." She says that part firm and cold. He sighs. And he backs off. She hears him walk down the hallway.  
  
She is the cause of chaos.  
  
He should have stayed in Denver.  
  
  
Breakfast is reheated, but she picks at it until she becomes frustrated with herself. For two hours, she sits on her one couch in the living room and pretends to read. He helped her move into this place, but he's only stayed over twice. Neither time ended well.  
  
With her foot, she reaches over to the coffee table and taps the record player on. She has a Matt Nathanson record in there. Perfect. For five songs about breakups and regrets, she wallows. She sprawls over the couch and hangs off it by the end.  
  
By "Falling Apart," she stands in the center of her small living room.  
  
"Maybe it's because I'm crazy, maybe it's because I just can't honestly tell you what I want." She sings along with Matt, uncaring of the notes she hits or misses. She closes her eyes and breathes in deep. "It's never enough to stay still and hold you. Am I no good to you now?"  
  
Class doesn't start up until Monday. Today is Friday.  
  
She murmurs a sorry to Matt as she turns off the record player.  
  
In the bathroom, as she showers, she listens to a different Matt Nathanson album. Soap in her hair, eyes open, she sings into the bottle of body wash.  
  
"Watch your back," she snaps, "I'm nobody's girlfriend."  
  
  
California is beautiful. Of all the places they've been to across the country, she's set on California. Maybe not Palo Alto forever, because she loves Santa Monica and Monterrey is also great, but California just the same. There are tentative plans to go out to Napa for Spring Break—six weeks away—and bask in wine country like a forty year old divorcee.

There’s a box of things that belonged to Mary. There isn’t much in there—a few hair pins, some jewelry, and three books. Those were the things salvaged from the fire. Sam doesn’t have that box. The pin she places in her hair now is one she bought in San Francisco when she first moved into this apartment. It was way too expensive for what it is, but the piece is made of glass. John keeps the box with him. Dean asked him for it once, to give to Sam, and from the black eye Dean showed up with afterwards, it did not go well.

She doesn’t want the box anyway.

Let the man have it, she told Dean. He needs it more than he needs respect for his kids or an understanding of how they got to be this way.

The dress she wears now is simple. It’s all white, with a square neck and tiny sleeves. On the hem is a pattern of cherries. She chose black flats, because dammit, she’s wearing a dress. There have been occasions where she’s proven to the world that she can wear heels. But she’s better at staying still in them than walking and Sam has places to be, things to see.

Outdoor, year-round farmer’s markets are possibly one of the highlights of California. No matter what city she’s been to, there’s always a farmer’s market. She knows the one in Palo Alto to the point where Mr. Yu has a bag of avocados ready for her. One by one, she visits her usual stalls, walking slow and taking her time. Apples. Honey. Bread. Jalapeno cheese. The bookstore tote bag she brings with fills up underneath the sun of a clear Friday. For lunch, she decides to get a crepe at the food stall area.

“Miss Sam,” Lucky crows from the booth. He’s an older gentleman who studied biology at Stanford for three years before dropping out to become a chef. The crepe stall is his retirement dream. “How you do?”

“I do well,” she replies with a smile.

“You’ve got a two o’clock.”

“Oh, I know.”

He was also a hunter. And he knows better than to ask Sam if she needs help. He knew who she was first before he knew who her father is.

“What’ll it be, Miss Sam?”

“Provencal ham, I think,” Sam orders. A line forms behind her. “And my usual, please.” The order is not passed along to Jake, Lucky’s assistant. He likes to make her orders himself. Jake doesn’t take it wrong; he asks Sam how her day is going and how classes are. Lucky laughs and teasingly tells him to get back to work.

One by one, orders get taken. Sam stands to the side.

Lucky passes her two crepes wrapped up in foil. She takes them, drops the ten from this morning into the tip jar, and walks away from the crowd. This is her life. It’s a good life, Speech class dude and waking up late for midterms because her phone died or not.

But there are tender spots in her consciousness that hurt more than she would care to admit.

“Eat it before it gets cold,” she murmurs and holds the ham crepe out to her left. Always the left.

“You haven’t gotten soft.” This followed by a happy noise after the foil is peeled back and a bite is taken out. “Mmph… I was gonna get one of these…”

“I beat your ass this morning, didn’t I?”

Dean licks Dijon mustard off his fingers. “Cheap shot.”

“What do you want?” She takes a more elegant bite out of her crepe. It’s best not to watch Dean eat. He mangles his crepe as he devours it, reminiscent of how the t-rex ate the goat in Jurassic Park. Gross. What’s worse is that so many people excuse his behavior because of either his looks or his upbringing. It just depends on who is around him. Sam has been around him her entire life; Dean Winchester is not perfect. His hunting strategies tend to be reckless and predictable—how that happens, she doesn’t understand—and he eats like a pig and thinks washing the dishes means buying paper plates.

But he does comprehend that Sam doesn’t want bullshit. Sleep on her couch her ass.

“I wanted to see you.”

“Check on me,” she corrects.

“No,” he corrects her. “See you.”

“Here I am.”

“Didn’t you…”

“What? Wanna see you too?”

He doesn’t answer. There’s only one other person on this whole entire earth than can cut Dean down to the little boy he used to be. She hates that about herself.

“Carry my bag.” It’s not a yes or a no. He doesn’t break but he doesn’t hope, either.

Back to her apartment, he carries her tote bag, walking just a step behind her for reasons she already knows.

 

He doesn’t take her dress off.

She doesn’t ask about the scar over his eye.

He goes down on her.

Her thighs squeeze around his head as his tongue flattens and presses down.

From the kitchen counter, they move into her bedroom. The smell of another irritates each of them. But she’s surrounded by the smell of leather, gun powder, driving for nineteen hours straight with only two stops along the way for gas and coffee. He’s got the beginning of a beard. The scratch of it teases her thighs.

By his hair, she pulls him up and kisses him. She is thick on his lips. She’s left the swell of his pink bottom lip shiny and slick.

This is a man who deserves to have that mouth worshipped. Her kisses are more forceful and demanding than his are. He is soft in this aspect. The press of his jeans against her dress is anything but soft. She reaches down and unzips jeans that should have been thrown out years ago. A glimpse of his hip bones—the dust of freckles there—and he moves as easy as he breathes.

He can have her bare.

One, firm drive in and he groans into the crook of her shoulder. She arches up and punches out a gasp that surprises her. The walls of her squeeze against him and pull him in a little further. But it’s that short distance that makes all the difference. Buried, he moves. The cheap bed frame protests. He times his movements in both speed and depth. One fast and short. One slow and deep. Sam holds onto the broad expanse of his back, digging her fingers in.

She shouldn’t be this excited. Her breaths come out in short, desperate puffs against his cheek.

And he shouldn’t know her this well still. He shouldn’t know the exact place to push the fat head of his cock against. He shouldn’t know to ease off that spot every four or five thrusts, then to drive over it with two firm, rough grinds that make her toes curl. His hands move from her hair to her breasts. Through the fabric of her dress and the padding of her bra, he rolls her nipples between his thumbs.

They make eye contact.

What happened in Denver?

It’s nothing.

It’s something.

He pulls out. He strokes the tip of him over the tip of her and she gasps, the muscles in her stomach trembling. She comes twice—once like that and again she he fucks a series of screams out of her.

He comes inside her, and afterwards, licks tears that run down her face.

It was something. Don’t lie.

It never occurred to her before that the scar and the bruises and the marks might not be from a hunt. All of it could be from a sad, lonely, grieving man alone in a roadhouse, clinging to a box.

She isn’t going to promise him anything. Not one damn thing.

Green eyes close and he hides under her chin, laying against her, soft everywhere now but still holding on. She brings a hand to his hair and closes her eyes. She’s nobody’s girlfriend.

“Don’t touch my record player,” is all she says before he falls asleep.

This is okay. This is different.

He is different.

She doesn’t wash him off herself.

 

**Author's Note:**

> There's a sequel to this now! It's called "Abnormal." Go read!


End file.
